With the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi just five days away, a Czech charity seeks to draw attention to the Russian government’s record on human rights.

People in Need, a Prague-based non-profit foundation, has launched an English-language site highlighting violations in Russia such as laws restricting freedom of assembly, discrimination against gays and non-governmental organizations. The Hidden Sports site, showing a 43-second video clip, also assures sarcastically that Russian authorities will do all their best to prevent the world from seeing any such violations during the Olympic and Paralympic games in Sochi, scheduled to end in mid-March. Read More »

Czech prime minister suffered an embarrassment when he used swearwords to complain he had to take a long-haul flight to South Africa to attend the Dec. 15 funeral of Nelson Mandela.

In a conversation with his government colleagues in parliament on Friday, Jiri Rusnok complained he was forced to travel instead of Czech President Milos Zeman who is recovering from a knee injury.

Mr. Rusnok vented his frustration in what he believed was a private chat with Defense Minister Vladimir Picek and Finance Minister Jan Fischer. Addressing his colleagues by the Czech equivalent of “dude,” Mr. Rusnok said: “It’s a hell of a distance” and since the Czech President “is unlikely to fly there, I’m damned.”

The recordings were broadcast by the Czech public television news channel CT24 and went viral over the weekend. Read More »

Amazon Inc. will use its five new distribution centers opening through 2015 in the Czech Republic and Poland to better reach customers outside its established European markets in Germany, the U.K. Britain, France and Spain, the head of regional operations at the worlds’ largest online retailer said Thursday.

“Getting a strong footprint in Central and Eastern Europe will allow us to go north and east,” said Tim Collins, director of Amazon’s European operations, during a visit to the Czech capital.

The online retail giant is currently finalizing building permits for two new sorting, packaging and shipping sites in the Czech Republic and two more in Poland. The four sites, which Amazon calls “fulfillment centers” for processing customer orders, are due to be fully operational in time for the 2014 Christmas holidays.

“Christmas shopping is always the key season for us,” Mr. Collins said, adding that a third Polish site will open in 2015.

Each fulfillment center will cover an area of 95,000 square meters, equal to about 18 American football fields or 13 European soccer pitches. Each can have multilevel floor plans to expand its capacity. Read More »

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s plan to gradually withdraw its support for debt markets is more manageable than many fear and won’t be enough to force investors to rethink their emerging market strategies, according to Switzerland-based Vontobel Asset Management.

Vontobel, which holds assets in countries as diverse as Turkey, Russia and Brazil, reckons that when the Fed eventually feels able to trim its $85 billion monthly asset purchase program it will cut it by $15 billion, an amount fund manager Luc D’hooge believes isn’t much.

Central Europe’s three biggest economies delivered a mix of good and bad surprises Thursday, with data showing Poland and Hungary grew faster than expected in the third quarter while the Czech Republic shrank.

The Czech economy contracted in annual and quarterly terms against analyst expectations that it would expand over the quarter and show a smaller annual decline. Analysts have said political weakness is holding back investment and borrowing. The country has had 12 different cabinets since its split with Slovakia in 1993.

The euro zone’s economy barely expanded in the third quarter as well. The Czech Republic heavily depends on exports to the euro zone for growth.

Gross domestic product fell 1.6% in the third quarter compared with the same period a year earlier and declined 0.5% when compared with the second quarter of the year, the Czech Statistics Office said. Read More »

Widening budget deficits are likely in some countries on the European Union’s eastern flank in the near future as belt tightening efforts of recent years that lead to economic slowdowns look set to give way to political priorities centered on increased state expenditure.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, Tuesday said that while several regional countries will post deficits below the EU’s ceiling of 3% of economic output this year, that trend looks set to evaporate.

“For the overall regional outlook it’s a positive,” said William Jackson, economist at Capital Economics in London.

“For countries like the Czech Republic, where fiscal consolidation seems to be the main reason they fell into recession, if they take their foot off the austerity brake it should help domestic demand recover,” Mr. Jackson said. Read More »

GODOLLO, Hungary–Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary–which make up the group of countries known as the Visegrad4–said Thursday they strongly support including western Balkan countries in the European Union to ensure stability in a region that is often torn apart by war and ethnic conflict.

“Some may say the train [of EU enlargement] is moving too fast or some may say it’s moving too slow but the main thing for the V4 is that the train is moving,” said Hungarian foreign minister Janos Martonyi, who hosted the event.

The V4 said EU enlargement is able to stabilize and transform the region for the benefit of all its partners while cautioning that membership should be conditional on the individual performance of those wishing to join.

Thursday’s meeting, which was also attended by high-level government representatives from Italy, Turkey, and Austria, was mainly intended to lend support to the Western Balkan countries of Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina in their efforts to accede to the EU, and to discuss further cooperation among some of the countries present in energy, infrastructure and culture.

Croatia became the EU’s most recent new member when it joined on July 1, taking the total to 28.

EU enlargement “is far from being on an autopilot. Brussels needs to seriously take into consideration concerns of the citizens of the EU,” said Stefan Fule, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, who was also present at the meeting the. Read More »

Czech police said Thursday they have charged 12 current and former soccer players with match-fixing and plan to bring in 20 other people for questioning in an alleged betting scandal affecting clubs at home and in neighboring Slovakia.

“Since the early hours of yesterday morning (police squads) have carried out arrests and other acts of criminal investigation in relation to suspected corruption in football circles, involving possible match-fixing in different competitions and related betting activities,” anti-graft police squad spokesman Jaroslav Ibehej said.

He said Czech police are co-operating with their Slovak counterparts. Read More »

PRAGUE—Czech lawmakers have kicked off discussions about early elections in the coming months to resolve a simmering political turmoil that culminated after a technocratic government failed a parliamentary confidence vote earlier this month.

The Czech Republic plunged into a political crisis in June when then Prime Minister Petr Necas resigned amid a bribery and power-abuse scandal involving his chief-of-staff and admitted mistress Jana Nagyova.

The following caretaker government, led by Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok, was expected to rule until the regular election due by end-May next year. By failing to win the parliament’s support, Mr. Rusnok’s cabinet now stays in power until a new elected government is formed by end-2013.

Czech President Milos Zeman, who has to set the date within 60 days of signing the parliament’s dissolution decision, sees the election taking place in late October, assuming the parliament votes on the issue Aug. 20, as expected. Read More »

Czech president Milos Zeman delivers a speech on Aug. 7, 2013 in the Czech Parliament in Prague ahead of a confidence vote on the new technocrat government.

PRAGUE–Czech lawmakers plan to hold a vote next week to dissolve the legislature, paving the way for an early election in the autumn, leaders of three parliamentary parties said Thursday.

The caretaker government lost a no-confidence vote late Wednesday and early elections would help solve the ongoing political uncertainty sparked by the collapse of the previous center-right coalition government in the wake of spying and corruption allegations.

“We don’t want this situation to linger but allow voters to elect their new parliament, possibly as early as in October,” said Bohuslav Sobotka, chairman of the Social Democrats, or CSSD, the largest center-left party in the 200-seat lower house of parliament.

Recent polls suggest that Mr. Sobotka could win the next parliamentary election and become the country’s new prime minister, banking on most Czechs’ fatigue with their country’s economic recession since late 2011 and the previous conservative government’s spending cuts and tax increases. Read More »

About Emerging Europe

Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.